Google Testing Black Navigation Bar

It looks like Google is on testing mode yet again. This time, they seem to be testing a black navigation bar. Here is a screenshot:

The new design brings out the navigation bar in Google’s usually minimalist search result page and makes it more noticeable. I think that by making the navigation bar more prominent, Google is trying to highlight its other products.

As with any new changes, there are people complaining about the change. Some are complaining that the new navigation bar looks wrong while other are complaining that it does not work well with their custom background.

Have you got the black navigation bar? What do you think Google is testing it for?

Google +1 Being Rolled Out Globally

Google has announced a while back that they are rolling out the +1 button globally on their search pages. While the +1 button has been available for websites on the day of the launch, it was restricted to only only the English search result pages on google.com.

Now, Google is rolling out the +1 button to its other country specific search result pages as well. Google will start off the process of rolling out with google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr first. After that, Google says that they will roll out to the other search sites soon.